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About a year ago, I posted this video online that showed a wide range of people – friends, acquaintances, strangers, toddlers – driving my Ferrari. And the video caused kind of a sensation, and everyone got kind of excited, but mostly people just thought I was insane.
“You let all these people drive your FERRARI?” people would say, incredulously, as if my used Ferrari had never been driven by anyone before. “What if they crashed it?!”
The people who thought I was especially crazy were the guys on the Ferrari forums. “Never buy Doug DeMuro’s used car,” I would read, from guys who bought their 1983 308 GTSi in 2012. “OTHER PEOPLE have driven it.”
I didn’t think there was very much risk. In fact, I sat in the passenger seat as these people drove my car, and the thing I came away understanding is that everyone is incredibly cautious when they drive someone else’s Ferrari. So while I’m sitting behind the wheel, texting and eating sandwiches, they’re one step away from getting out of the car at a stop light to make sure they stopped the perfect distance behind the crosswalk.
I had a similar experience recently when I purchased a right-hand drive Nissan Skyline GT-R, imported straight from Japan, which makes me JDM Tyte, yo. I’ve already let several people climb behind the wheel, and each were very surprised that a) I allowed them to drive my new car, and b) pushing the turn signal activated the wipers.
But once again, I didn’t really mind. What’s the point of having a fun car if you aren’t going to share it? I know, I know, some people like to look at their cars, and keep them pristine, and polish them, and keep miles off the odometer. But in both cases, these were used cars; cars that have undoubtedly been driven by dozens of people over the years, and not anywhere near as carefully as my friends drive while I keep a watchful eye from the passenger seat.
In fact, I have generally maintained a very liberal policy about driving most of my cars over the years. Once I know you well enough, you’re more than welcome to climb behind the wheel, fire it up, and see just how much fun it is to pretend – for just a moment – that whatever used vehicle I owned that month was your own giant money pit.
Many car enthusiasts, however, do not feel the same way. On the contrary, I’ve noticed that a wide range of car enthusiasts take a No one drives my cars attitude to automobile ownership. So much, in fact, that a lot of enthusiasts refuse to let even their own spouse – a person with access to passwords, and banking information, and the knife drawer – climb behind the wheel of their vehicle, for fear of damage.
The main reason, of course, is that we are all worried someone might drive too hard, or too fast, or too inattentively, and then our pride and joy will be smashed up, and we’ll be left with a tricky insurance situation. What happened? Who was driving? Why was he driving? Why weren’t you driving? And then the claim will be denied, and the car will never be repaired, and life as we know it will cease to exist because you will instead have to drive around in a Toyota product.
And I admit, this is a reasonable point of view, which is why there remains a fairly large divide between car enthusiasts on this issue. And so now I ask you: do you let other people drive your car? If so, who? And under what circumstances? Alone? With you in the passenger seat? Many times? Just once?
It’ll also be helpful here to point out the type of vehicle you drive. I say this because someone who responds that they have a 1964 Lamborghini 350GT and they occasionally let their friends drive it gets a lot more credit than someone who replies that they have a 1994 Corolla and they let anyone drive it, including friends, family, their mailman, the tree trimmer guy, etc.
So, ladies and gentlemen, what are you driving? And what’s your view on letting other people drive it?
The post Question Of The Day: Who Gets To Drive Your Car? appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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